Behind Every Great Man
by Marauder-In-Disguise
Summary: ...Is a woman who was great ten minutes before he even got out of bed. Written for March Madness on CCOAC
1. Hotch

**A/N: Written for the March Madness challenge over at Chit Chat on Author's Corner. My first foray into anything involving JJ, so we'll see what you guys make of it! **

**Disclaimer: Apart from a newly acquired Series 5 DVD, I got nothing **

_**Pairing: Hotch and JJ  
Prompt: Who's The Boss?**_

It was quite a good dream, by all accounts, and Hotch was sorry to have it disturbed by the shrill ring of his phone. For a moment he kept his eyes shut and hoped that the noise was just another bit of the dream and soon it would stop.

It didn't.

With a sigh, he rolled over and grabbed the offending noisemaker, groaning as his eye fell on the illuminated numbers of the digital clock face. 2:25 am exactly. A brief panic welled inside him when he remembered Jack was staying with Jessica and he checked the caller ID, praying that it wouldn't be her phoning to tell him something was wrong. As JJ's name flashed on the screen, he took a second to let his pounding heart slow down and pressed the green phone, retreating back into the warmth of the bed clothes as he lifted the phone to his ear.

"JJ? What is it?"

The rasp in his voice surprised him and he coughed quickly to clear his throat. She was silent, waiting to him to finish before she spoke.

"Sorry to do this to you, Hotch but we've been called in to a child abduction in LA. They want us there ASAP."

Massaging his forehead slowly, Hotch processed the details silently before he spoke again.

"How long has it been?"

"Three hours."

"That's a great response time," he murmured, almost to himself, "Do we have much to work with?"

"A witness who thinks they might have seen something important and whatever you can get from the previous dump sites."

"Previous?"

"In the last two months, two other twelve year old boys were taken and their bodies dumped thirty one hours later. Local PD are working on the theory it's the same guy."

Throwing back the covers and swinging himself out of bed, Hotch was already padding towards the bathroom when he said, "OK. Call the rest of the team and have them meet at the office as soon as they can get there. I'll phone you again when I'm on my way."

He hung up and threw his phone behind him on to the bed. He splashed some cold water on his face, looking longingly at the shower reflected in the mirror over the sink. They'd only just got back from a case the previous evening and he'd fallen into bed with the intention of showering in the morning instead of having to stay awake for any longer. He gazed at it for a moment longer and then quickly rid himself of his sleepwear, stepping into the cubicle and switching on the water; he was an expert at taking quick showers and it wouldn't delay him that much. They couldn't go anywhere until Dave got to the office anyway and he lived further out than any of them. There was time.

By 3am, he was showered and dressed, with the re-packing of his go –bag taking the longest amount of time. He cursed his disorganisation, trying to block the bizarre mental images he was getting of standing at the abducted boy's funeral and knowing that his unpacked go – bag was the reason they couldn't get to California sooner and rescue him. As he carefully folded his last clean shirt, he promised himself that he would never again relax after a case until he was sure that he could leave for the next one in an instant.

Pausing to set the security alarm that he hadn't quite been able to shake the habit of having, he took a last glance around and grabbed his keys, running out to the car and throwing the bag and his suit jacket into the passenger seat. The roads were always quiet this early in the morning and he drove quickly with one hand on the wheel, the other dialling JJ. She picked up after only two rings.

"Hotch?"

"JJ. I'm just leaving now. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Can you phone the pilot and tell him to have the jet ready for 4 am? That should give everyone enough time to meet and for us to get to the airstrip."

"Sure thing," she said brightly, her voice far too chirpy for the ridiculous hour, "And don't call again unless you're on the hands free."

"I beg your pardon?" he asked guiltily, eyeing the innocuous phone cradle on the dash and practically feeling the weight of the neglected ear piece in his shirt pocket.

"I can tell when you're not using it," she said matter of factly, "And if you're predicting an ETA of twenty minutes from now, you're driving far too fast to only be using one hand. Stay safe, Hotch."

And she was gone before he had a chance to reply. With a small smile, he slotted the phone into the cradle and fitted the receiver into his ear. It had become a recent quest of JJ's to have the team – especially certain male members of the team – use hands free devices more when they were driving. She'd won with Prentiss and Reid, but the three alpha males were proving tougher nuts to crack. Hotch knew that she would never believe him capable of such a thing, but part of the reason he kept 'forgetting' to use his was because it irritated her so much when he didn't. She'd expect something like that from Derek and even from Dave, but never from him.

And that was half the fun.

He was over halfway to the office by the time he saw another vehicle on the road – an ambulance that screamed past him, heading in the opposite direction. Any good cheer he had been nursing after his last call to JJ seemed to evaporate with the fading sound of the sirens and his mind strayed to the missing boy. JJ had said he was twelve, which meant that he was more than double Jack's age, but that had never stopped him making the connection before. He hated cases that involved children more than anything else, and whilst that wasn't entirely due to having Jack, his son certainly didn't help matters. The day JJ had told him she was pregnant, during the madness in New York, one of his first thoughts had been, to his shame, entirely selfish.

"_Thank God it's not just me."_

With a sigh, he pressed the number two speed dial on his phone. JJ answered almost as quickly as before in the same cheerful tone.

"JJ, it's me."

"Hands free. Very good," she quipped, "What do you need?"

"I'm about halfway there. I should be about another ten minutes. If Garcia gets there before me, I need you to ask her to start pulling files on unsolved child abductions and murders in LA. Go back ten years and look for anything that seems to match any details of this case you haven't told me yet. You know the drill by now."

"Sure thing," she replied, and he heard the rustle of paper in the background, probably as she picked up the file for another read through, "Anything else?"

"That's it, thank you. Are any of the others there yet?"

There was a brief pause before she answered, as though she was actually performing a head count, "Yes."

"OK. Well, like I said, I won't be long. See you soon."

Exactly ten minutes later, Hotch pulled into his favourite parking space, grabbed his bag and headed towards the elevator. The security guard on the main gate had shot him a sleepy looking smile as he raised the barrier but had said nothing; the man had seen them all enough at random times of night to not even need to check their credentials anymore. The elevator seemed to climb slower towards the BAU, as though it knew that it was night, and Hotch watched the numbers impatiently until they finally hit the right floor.

The rest of the team was already in the briefing room when he entered it, and if he had got a little more sleep, he probably would have realised it was rather odd they should all have beat him there. Instead, he fell into the spare seat and gratefully accepted the coffee JJ handed him.

"Good morning," Dave grimaced, his hands clasped around his own mug, "Lovely time of day for it."

"Mmm," Hotch agreed, sipping his coffee, "OK. I know that the rest of you don't know much about this case yet but we're not going to hang around here talking. We can sleep for a couple of hours and brief before we get there. Agreed?"

The nods around the table were all he needed as he eyed each face displaying that slightly bewildered look of the sleep deprived. They felt even less like talking than he did. All except JJ, that is. She looked as calm and composed as always, leaning against the coffee table in the corner, her hand resting on a stack of files that Hotch saw but didn't really acknowledge. He drained his coffee and stood up.

"Right. I asked the plane to be ready for four, but if we head off now it might be early and we can go. Reid, you take Dave, Prentiss and Morgan. You look the most awake of them all. JJ can come with me once we've seen Garcia. Let's go."

As the team stood up and moved out of the room, Hotch failed to notice the lack of argument on Dave's part for being driven – an argument that he should have expected – and he only saw the look JJ shot towards the retreating form of the oldest team member. It was what he privately called her 'fighting' look and he wondered what Dave had done to piss her off that morning.

"OK, JJ. Let's get going. I think I'll make sleeping on the plane an order."

Shrugging into her jacket, she smirked, "You're the boss."


	2. JJ

**For disclaimer, see chapter one**

It was quite a good dream, by all accounts, and JJ was sorry to have it disturbed by the shrill ring of her phone. For a moment she kept his eyes shut and hoped that the noise was just another bit of the dream and soon it would stop.

It didn't.

With a sigh, she rolled over and grabbed the offending noisemaker, groaning as her eye fell on the illuminated numbers of the digital clock face. 2:00 am exactly. She sat up, trying to soothe a grumbling Will back to sleep by stroking his hair with one hand, whilst pressing the green phone with the other. She didn't recognise the number and grimaced, wondering what was bad enough to warrant them being called out at this time of day.

"Agent Jennifer Jareau."

"Agent? This is Detective Dan Stillman, with the LAPD. I'm sorry to call you at this time ma'am, but we've got a child abduction and the protocol says to get the FBI involved as soon-"

"It's OK, Detective," she said gently, the panic in the man's voice evident even to her tired brain, "We wrote the protocol. I know the drill."

"Of course. I'm sorry. It's just that we're real worried this end of the line. All the details of this abduction match another two we've had in the last two months and both of those poor boys turned up dead less than two days later. We've got nothing on this case and the media have got hold of it and-"

"Detective Stillman," she said firmly, slipping from the bed so as not to disturb Will again, "Please calm down. You did the right thing phoning straight away. I'll phone my team now and we'll be on the plane as soon as possible. Now, how long was it before the other boys were found?"

"Thirty one hours."

"And what age are we talking?"

"All twelve years old."

"How long since this last one disappeared?"

"Three hours. Like I said, I phoned straight away."

"OK. As soon as I know more I will phone you back. Goodbye for now, detective."

"Goodbye. Thank you."

JJ hung up and quickly washed her face, grateful that she'd showered and packed her bag before going to sleep. She'd had an odd feeling that they might be called away in a hurry and it turned out to be right. That gave her two less things to do at such a ridiculously early time. She hoped the rest of the team had been as vigilante or they could be in for delays.

Dressing quickly, she went downstairs to phone the rest of the team. She worked backwards up the speed dial, starting with Dave because he had the furthest to go and ending with Garcia who lived the closest. The reaction to her calls was mixed at best; Dave sounded half dead on the other end, Morgan swore and Prentiss said that if she didn't love her so much, she'd have to kill her. Garcia and Reid, predictably, weren't asleep. They never seemed to be, whatever time of day or night she phoned. They both probably lived purely on the coffee that surged through their veins in place of blood.

The team informed, she phoned Hotch last. He actually had further to travel than half the team but on call outs like this, she always left him so he could get the most sleep possible. As soon as he knew there was a case he would, in predictable Hotch fashion, throw himself into the work and not rest until they had an answer for the grieving families. That had become the norm even more since Hayley died, and JJ did everything she could to ensure that he actually rested.

He took a while to pick up and her stomach flipped guiltily as he answered in a gravelly voice. He'd been deeply asleep, for once. She waited for him to clear his throat before she spoke.

"Sorry to do this to you, Hotch but we've been called in to a child abduction in LA. They want us there ASAP."

There was another silence, in which she almost hear the gears in his brain warming up and processing the information.

"How long has it been?" he asked.

"Three hours."

"That's a great response time," he murmured, more to himself than her, "Do we have much to work with?"

"A witness who thinks they might have seen something important and whatever you can get from the previous dump sites."

"Previous?"

"In the last two months, two other twelve year old boys were taken and their bodies dumped thirty one hours later. Local PD are working on the theory it's the same guy."

She could vaguely hear the rustle of fabric and the creak of bedsprings as he got out of bed. Seemingly unable to do both, he waited until this task was done before he spoke again.

"OK. Call the rest of the team and have them meet at the office as soon as they can get there. I'll phone you again when I'm on my way."

She smiled briefly to herself as he hung up, glad that he didn't expect a response to his last order. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. She pocketed her phone and crept back upstairs to see Will. Crawling onto the bed, she gently shook him until he woke up. He stared uncomprehendingly at her for a moment as his brain woke up and then he sighed.

"Where you going to now, my darlin'?"

"Child abduction in LA. You know the protocol. We have to go now."

He nodded and pulled her close to him. For a brief minute, she allowed him to cuddle her against his chest and then she pulled away, kissing him gently before standing up to straighten her blouse and pull on a jacket. He watched her through half closed eyes and then, to her surprise, he smiled.

"You're beautiful, you know."

"Thank you and I'm sorry. I'll call you in the morning, OK?"

"Sure thing. I love you."

"I love you too," she murmured as he turned over and settled down. Before she was even out of the door, he was snoring again. She slipped into Henry's room and leaned over the crib, kissing him gently on the forehead and smoothing his hair. He made a tiny baby noise and she whispered in return, "I love you. I'll be back soon, I promise."

Once she was in the car and on the way to the office, she pulled up the number for the on call pilot. She was grateful that this week it was her favourite of the three who regularly flew them across the country. Talking to him wasn't just easy, it was actually quite pleasant, and he never made her feel guilty about getting him up and out of bed. She asked him to be ready to fly at four, sure that barring any unpleasant incidents the team should be ready by then, and then phoned the airstrip to let them know to prep the plane. It was a frightening testament to the regularity of their work that the guy who answered the phone knew her voice even before she had identified herself and she chuckled to herself, wondering if she was the only non-millionaire known personally at the private airstrip.

The night guard on the main gate at Quantico shook his head as she pulled up just before three am.

"What's got you out at this time of night, sweetness?" he asked, raising the barrier.

"Child abduction," she confided, "Not good."

"Nope," he agreed, his mane of white hair drifting gently from side to side as he shook his head again, "I don't know how you do it."

"Sometimes, I don't either," she said, "But I'm still here."

"Then you're better than I'll ever be," he smiled, "So can I expect the usual suspects coming through here in a little while?"

"That you can. I'm sorry if any of them are short with you. None of us are working on much sleep."

"I'll bear that in mind. See you soon, sweet."

"Bye, Harry."

As though he had waited for the perfect moment, Hotch didn't phone her again until she was in the office with her bag on Prentiss' desk and her phone in her hand. She answered the moment it rang.

"Hotch?"

"JJ. I'm just leaving now. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Can you phone the pilot and tell him to have the jet ready for 4 am? That should give everyone enough time to meet and for us to get to the airstrip."

"Sure thing," she said, worried for a brief moment that he would able to tell she was trying not to smile, "And don't call again unless you're on the hands free."

"I beg your pardon?" he asked, his voice sounding guilty and un-Hotch like enough for her to know that she was right. He was far more predictable than he would like to think he was.

"I can tell when you're not using it," she said matter of factly, "And if you're predicting an ETA of twenty minutes from now, you're driving far too fast to only be using one hand. Stay safe, Hotch."

She hung up before he could reply, wandering to the coffee machine and amusing herself with pictures of him dutifully cradling his phone, that almost-but-not-quite pissed off look that he got sometimes clear on his face. He would be the next one she could break on her hands free crusade, if not because he actually cared for the safety precaution but because he didn't cope well with being told what to do. At least she knew he wasn't forgetting on purpose, like Derek and Rossi. If that was the case, she'd never get anywhere with any of them.

The coffee machine was just spluttering to life when the whirlwind that was Penelope Garcia came sweeping into the room.

"Jayje, you read my mind," she said, "Mama needs her mocha."

"Well, you're the first here," JJ smiled, "So hang around and you get dibs on the first cup."

"Music to my ears," Garcia sighed, "So what's the story, Balamory?"

She perched on the edge of the table and listened carefully as JJ explained what she knew so far, which admittedly wasn't that much. Then she pulled a notebook and a suitably garish pen from her bag and sat poised.

"OK. What do you need?"

"I need printouts of the file that the detective should have sent over ASAP and then I think we could get started on a little research."

"I thought they were the profilers," Garcia winked, "Should we be making decisions like this?"

"That joke never gets old," JJ laughed, "OK. If you look at unsolved child abductions and murders in the LA area and then cut it down to kids of about the same age as the boys in this case and see if you can match anything about the dumpsite. Go back ten years, just for starters. They can come up with a more accurate time frame when they get some evidence."

Garcia's pen raced as she wrote everything down, the flamingo on the end of her pen nodding frantically. With a flourish, she finished up and accepted the cup of coffee JJ had been making at the same time as talking.

"Fear not, my love. The cyber highway will reveal all we need to know about this freak."

And she was gone, off to her office to work some magic. Pouring herself some coffee, JJ waited patiently for the rest of the team to arrive. The office was always strange in the middle of the night; the lights that served them perfectly well during the day never seemed enough at night, even taking into account the lack of daylight pouring through the wide windows. She was glad that Garcia was just along the hall. She wasn't exactly scared, but the lack of noise meant that whatever sounds there were tended to amplify and even ping of the elevator was creepy. The prompt arrival of Reid cheered her immensely, as did those of Morgan and Prentiss a few minutes later. She poured them all coffee and had just tugged out her phone to perhaps check on Rossi when Hotch's name lit up the screen again.

"JJ, it's me."

"Hands free. Very good," she quipped, winking at Emily, "What do you need?"

"I'm about halfway there. I should be about another ten minutes. If Garcia gets there before me, I need you to ask her to start pulling files on unsolved child abductions and murders in LA. Go back ten years and look for anything that seems to match any details of this case you haven't told me yet. You know the drill by now."

"Sure thing," she replied, mouthing a silent thank you to Reid, who had just returned from Garcia's office with the freshly printed case files, "Anything else?"

"That's it, thank you. Are any of the others there yet?"

She didn't answer immediately, composing herself as she eyed not only those who were drinking coffee and reading, but also the oldest team member stumbling from the elevator with his hair in a mess and a look like thunder on his face.

"Yes."

"OK. Well, like I said, I won't be long. See you soon."

Dave had made it to the gathering by the time she hung up, and she pressed a mug of coffee into his hands before he could even speak.

"What happened?"

He sipped his drink, avoiding her eyes for a moment as he savoured the taste, and then mumbled, "Might have fallen asleep at the wheel."

"What?" she cried, "Are you OK?"

"Yeah," he said, "Almost had a head on with a lorry but I woke up after that. I'm fine now."

"Fine my ass," she snapped, herding the team towards the conference room, "You're not driving to the airstrip."

"JJ, I'm fine now. I don't need-"

The rest of the team watched impassively as she exploded.

"I don't care! You are not driving any more until you've got some more sleep. In fact-" she looked at the others, who were doing their best to avoid her gaze, "I think Spence can drive you all. At least he's awake. And you are all going to sleep on the plane, even if I have to get Hotch to make it an order. You're useless like this."

Dave opened his mouth to argue but stopped himself when he saw Morgan shaking his head behind JJ's back. There was no arguing when JJ was in a mothering mood.

Hotch chose that moment to enter the room, and JJ tore her gaze away from Dave to hand him a mug of coffee. He seemed oblivious to the argument that had just taken place, a fact all assembled were glad for.

"Good morning," Dave grimaced, his hands clasped around his own mug, "Lovely time of day for it."

"Mmm," Hotch agreed, sipping his coffee, "OK. I know that the rest of you don't know much about this case yet but we're not going to hang around here talking. We can sleep for a couple of hours and brief before we get there. Agreed?"

JJ, leaning against the coffee table, rested her hand on the small pile of files Garcia had pulled in the short time since she started looking, and looked menacingly at the rest of the team. They nodded at Hotch's words, following his example and finishing their coffee.

"Right. I asked the plane to be ready for four, but if we head off now it might be early and we can go. Reid, you take Dave, Prentiss and Morgan. You look the most awake of them all. JJ can come with me once we've seen Garcia. Let's go."

JJ expected Dave to argue again, so she was pleased when he left the room without a word. As a precaution she sent her best intimidating look in his direction, in case he looked back and was in any doubt as to her seriousness when it came to making sleep an order. She had power. She could pull strings with the best of them, and they all knew that. They wouldn't dare cross her.

She didn't catch Hotch looking curiously at her as he said, "OK, JJ. Let's get going. I think I'll make sleeping on the plane an order."

She knew she was smirking as she pulled on her jacket, but the timing of his words was too delicious not to allow herself the small victory.

"You're the boss."


End file.
